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Democracy means far more than the right to vote every five years. It means the right to participate in every aspect of national and community life. The people must believe that they can take part.

— Michael Manley

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Democracy

More quotes by Michael Manley

Democracy should be as much a system of participation as a method of representation.

To understand today’s politics one must always begin with yesterday’s economics.

Jamaica: Struggle in the Periphery (1982)

Where political sovereignty has been conceded but economic power remains untouched, equality remains a myth, social justice proves unattainable and even freedom becomes an ambiguous phenomenon.

We believe that the idea of equality is the only enduring principle by which mankind may be guided in the conduct of national and international affairs.

Just as surely history is the product of those forces which seek to dominate in the name of glory or profit, equally is history the product of the forces of those who rebel.”

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Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

Mikhail Gorbachev

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!

Vladimir Lenin The State and Revolution (1917)

The law itself is the instrument of the ruling class; hence it is a logical impossibility for another class to assume power legally.

Oliver Cox Caste, Class, and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics (1948)

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of bourgeois stupidity.

Gustave Flaubert

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Michael Manley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.